I’ve always been interested in how self-consciousness alters our identity, so my art naturally becomes a way of exploring the different ways we define ourselves through others. I’m heavily drawn towards figurative art, and find the human form the best place to look at the extremities and disruptions that push us beyond the predictable and make the body talk. I tend to be an instinctive painter, so that I work in the moment rather than from plans. I think this means the art is less censored, less concerned, even if it’s more chaotic or absurd. With figurative art, the artist plays a role in filling up space that challenges the contained, precise and predictable forms we’re so often presented with. Once eyes start moving outside of those shapes they become exciting again. The bodies that materialise in my own work are an alternative account of the routine human…

Last year, around this time, I was struggling. My Pakistani husband had moved back home to Lahore. We had both been living in New York so he could do his MBA. He graduated, our marriage failed, and I decided to enroll in a writing program online so I could stay in America on a student visa, which would buy me some time to figure out what the fuck I wanted to do with my life. I definitely didn’t want to go back to Pakistan, the Land of that Judgy Aunties and crappy infrastructure. I was working three jobs to cover rent and trying to write my novel at night. And that’s how I completely forgot about Bakra Eid, one of the biggest holidays in the Muslim year.

I write you today upon hearing the grave news that another heinous mass shooting has happened, this time in Roseburg, Oregon. We learned today that at least 10 people have lost their lives, and at least 7 have been injured.

I write you this letter so that you can see the face of a survivor. I write you this letter as someone who saw with my own eyes the horror of a mass shooting, a shooting that took the lives of my twin and younger sister and injured my father at New Life Church in December 2007. And most importantly I write this letter to open a dialogue about the role that gun violence has played in our country.

I say specifically to open a dialogue, because I am not strictly anti-gun. I feel that I am in a unique place to address this issue. About 3…